Past Life Hypnosis and Hypnotic Regression - Are they real?

So who is?

Except for the occasional fraud who does make the story up for attention I think the blame has to be placed firmly on the shoulders of the hypnotist. Some hypnotists are simply not aware enough of their own language to treat others with the respect, consideration and SKILL they deserve.

Let me give an example from several years ago. I remember watching a film of a therapist working with a young child who was believed to have been sexually abused. In such cases when dealing with young children a doll is often used to ease communication. The therapist held out the naked rag doll and, pointing to various points on the dolls anatomy asked "Were you touched here, or here?"

Now some people will spot the problem straight away. The therapist, in my opinion, should have been shot - well OK, sent on a course to learn about language. Children have a more primitive (if that's the right word) way of handling questions than adults, and this question (a presupposition incidentally), gives no way out without agreeing that they were touched.

Generally, young children will have to choose one of the provided answers, as will some adults, and most people under hypnosis. Presuppositions are a very powerful hypnotic language pattern, especially if they are stacked deeply, and using them in this way is just plain wrong.

Hypnotists need to act in a responsible way, especially when they're dealing with emotive issues. I'm not suggesting that hypnotists are purposefully misleading their clients with past life hypnosis, but that they may be bringing their own beliefs, and agendas to the 'therapy' session. After all it's no good using past life hypnosis for regression if you can't find a past life to regress to! It's quite easy for a hypnotist to get caught up in the moment and not think too clearly about their language. Imagine asking someone the question "Now go back to a time before you were born. Who are you?" Under hypnosis without the clients usual critical reasoning its very easy to simply think about a historical time before you were born and associate into whatever scene you've imagined.

Pease note that I am not referring to hypnotic age regression in this article. Hypnotic age regression is a valid process in which the client is regressed to an earlier point in their life, usually before a specific event.

Straying a little from the original subject of past life hypnosis, I read an interesting article once that collated data from hypnotists in the USA who had 'uncovered' memories of alien abduction, and hypnotists who had 'uncovered' memories of ritual satanic abuse.

The most revealing statistic was the fact that while some hypnotists had uncovered cases in the double figures, not one of the hypnotists questioned had uncovered both types of memory.

Hopefully, it should be clear what this imply's - every hypnotist that reported such memories is either an alien abduction hypnotist or a satanic abuse hypnotist. As a potential client if you were allowed to check the hypnotists cases you could choose what kind of abuse you had suffered from. This stuff is truly awful.

There is even a book on using hypnosis to uncover satanic abuse memories - I believe it should be on the shelf next to the book by the psychic who talks to dead pets or even better in the trash.